Construct 2 – the HTML5 game maker

I’ve been experimenting with Construct 2 from Scirra the last few days. Construct 2 is a program from creating HTML 5 games. What really got my interest was that there is the ability to create Windows 8 games using Construct 2 with Visual Studio 12. The Construct 2 development environment is pretty easy to use and I find that some similarities to Visual Studio (among other tools) is helpful in finding ones way around it. The image below shows the layout of graphical objects on the screen as well as the properties box, list of images and outline of the project. Very similar to what I am used to.

The coding involves what is called an event sheet. On an event sheet specific events (for example a mouse click) are specified and one or more actions are described to be the result of that event.

I really like that for a single event you can easily specify different actions for different objects in the game. And of course by the nature of the IDE syntax errors are avoided which is a plus for beginners.

Programs/games are created in the Construct 2 IDE and tested in a web browser. Once a game is completed it can be exported into several formats including the experimental Windows 8 app.

My next step is to outline the things you’ll want to include in a game that you make with Construct 2 in order to make it fit the guidelines for inclusion in the Windows Marketplace. But in the mean time Construct 2 looks like an interesting tool for starting with game development as a way to hook studnets on to software development. Anyone else using it? What do you think of it?

Familiarity is a sorry substitute for discoverability. You have to know quite a few shortcut key sequences to be productive at all in Visual Studio.

VS could learn something from Blender's context menus.

Holding VS up as an example to be followed for UI design is a crime against the software development profession. There is no other program on earth that gets in my way more than VS/TFS. Talk about miserable user experiences. People making tools for an audience who uses those tools for 4 or more hours a day and then turn around and charge what they do for Visual Studio ought to do better.

How much time did you invest in Visual Studio before you were really productive in it? I'm guessing it was a substantial amount. I too am productive in VS, but there was a fairly steep learning curve (for a glorified text editor) to get attain that level of productivity. Throw in Resharper and I'm even more productive. I love R#. VS is more of a love/hate thing leaning toward hate.

Hi, I like Construct 2. But did you experience any odd behaivor with mulitouch? Specifically pinch to zoom breaking the layout even in fullscreen or has that been fixed? Also, how would you incorporate snapped mode with a construct project?